


Who Runs The World?

by Yami_Kada7



Series: Link Down [8]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: And a lot of plotting on Queen's part, Day 8, Mostly people talking, VRAINS Week 2019, VRLink14, What if Ryoken didn't stop the Lost Incident?, What if?, world domination anyone?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 02:01:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19984210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yami_Kada7/pseuds/Yami_Kada7
Summary: Queen really had to hand it to Kogami. His intended results were yet to be seen in action, but she got seven perfect pawns out of the Incident.





	Who Runs The World?

**Author's Note:**

> Again: Super late, I know, I'm trying to catch up but Life doesn't want me to have five minutes to myself anymore.
> 
> There's a lot of just talking in this but I hope you all like it! Queen goes full evil mastermind at the end, so that should be fun at least!

Queen’s heels clicked down the hall, heading into the depths of the laboratory. She relished in the sharp sound, distracting her from the ache in her head from all the negotiations earlier in the day. Something of this morality was not easy to cover up.

The elevator at the end of the hall opened, and upon spotting her the lab assistants inside hurried to keep the door open. She smirked, eyeing them for any imperfections. It was nice to be around people who knew exactly what she was capable of, their reactions were always so amusing.

“Lowest level.” She barked as she stepped across the threshold, trusting that none of the imbeciles could mess that up. She stood still in the center of the elevator, hand on her hip. 

The lab assistants escaped from the elevator one at a time until it was just her riding down past the last five levels. Finally the doors slid open and she made a mental note to have the elevators fixed to move faster. There was only so much of her time she could waste getting from place to place.

She stalked into the lab where the researchers for the potential disaster were running tests, bringing all activity to a halt. “There had better be some damn good news in all this mess you’ve created, Kogami, or I’m leaving you to deal with the fallout all on your own.”

The man in question approached her, that fake-polite smile on his face that made her want to remind him of what mortality was. “Luckily, since you intervened before the police could be deployed, we have all of the data still intact, as well as the six test subjects.” He turned to a computer, bringing up some holographic graphs. “Based on my calculations as well, the new AIs should be complete in just a few more days, a week at most. IGN-06 seems to have already reached completion, in fact, although we are still running through the data now to confirm that.”

Queen hummed, frowning at the numbers. “What about this one? It seems to be moving at a much slower pace than the rest.” She pointed at the file for IGN-01, the graphs for which were about a third of the way behind the rest.

“Ah that was quite the interesting case, you see this AI determined a few months back that the declining rate of duels it saw in the test subject it corresponds to as detrimental to development, and that the best way to increase the rate of duels was to encourage the test subject somehow. Unfortunately when it tried to interfere with the duel program to project an image of rescuers coming to give aid to the subject, the duel program saw the interference as a form of cheating, and punished the subject accordingly. This repeated for a while before we found a way to block IGN-01 from interfering, but at that point the subject was already disinclined to duel, and even withdrew from any physical activity that wasn’t strictly necessary to stay alive. I believe, though, that by incorporating elements from the other AIs into this one post-data gathering, that it will be able to improve its own parameters to be equal to the others in a short time frame.” He brought up a new image showing a simulation of the aforementioned splice, and the conclusion did seem plausible.

“Even if that doesn’t work, we’ll have one advanced AI and five that can’t be matched by any other company in the world in our possession. However,” She turned to Kogami, crossing her arms, “What does SOL Technology stand to gain from these AI with free will? If they can’t be controlled, then what guarantee do we have that there will be any monetary benefit to their existence?” 

“A very good one, although it stems more from what the AI can create than the AIs themselves. The development for the Virtual Reality Dueling Platform is at a standstill, but these AIs are already building similar structures with far more stable coding on their own. Just by replicating the coding that they’ve come up with already, a fortune and a revolution of dueling everywhere could be just months away instead of the four years that the research team can tenuously promise.”

Queen did like the sound of that, but she wasn’t sure that she liked it  _ enough _ . “Oh? That does sound promising, but no different than what we were already doing. Anything new?” 

Kogami frowned, clearly expecting more of a reaction, but pulled up a new screen, this one showing a duelling field. “Over the course of the experiment, we’ve had to up the difficulty of the duels that the test subjects have undergone to ensure that they don’t fall into any familiar patterns or become too successful to necesitate dueling more than a few times a day. So we had the developmental AIs come up with new dueling algorithms for the AI opponents that the subjects face, and the results at this point are as advanced as some duelists on the professional circuit.”

Kogami hit a button and footage from an old duel started playing. Even from the viewpoint of the subject, Queen could tell that the dueling AI was truly as advanced as Kogami claimed. She tapped one finger against her arm. “We could take that program, turn it into a duelist trainer. Everyone aiming for the pro league would buy a copy once they see how effective the opponent they’d be up against is.” She let a smirk curl up. “Better.” She kept watching the screen, where the subject pulled off a ten-card combination to halve the AIs life points. “Much better.”

She walked around the room, taking in all the data from the different workstations scattered around the premises. “What about the person who alerted the authorities? I trust that they won’t be a problem anymore?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed one of the others shift, and snapped her gaze over. The blue haired man looked really uncomfortable. Kogami cut in before she could snap at him. “When you were generous enough to let us move our facilities down here, we placed him in a cell alongside the test subjects. It is impossible to escape from the inside, so there won’t be any risk of him getting help.”

Kogami clicked open another projection to show her, and a white-haired boy wearing VR gear and a duel disk appeared. As she watched, she took a few glances at the other faces in the room. Kogami was impassive, the blue-haired man and the red-headed woman looked pained, and the green-haired man just smiled.

“Who is this? How did they get into your facilities?” She asked.

“That would be my son, I let him into the building on days when I could not find a sitter. He was never allowed near the monitors, and the whole building should have been soundproof, so I don’t know how he managed to find out about the subjects in the first place.” Kogami still looked as unruffled as ever.

Queen hummed. “So you placed him under the same conditions as the rest?” She laughed. “What a wonderful idea.” She peered closer at the projection. “How is he holding up, compared to the others?” 

Kogami shrugged. “I have high standards, he was already an exceptional duelist. His win ratio was lower at the start, but this past week has risen almost to the same level as the others. He’s more emotionally stable too, since he hasn’t been inside for as long.” 

“Are you going to make an AI based off of him as well?” Queen asked, already certain of the answer.

“No, I thought it would be a better use of him to have IGN-06 gather data from him as well, since he already interfered in Subject-06’s experiment by finding a way to talk to them. IGN-06 seems to be benefiting from it already.” Kogami zoomed in on IGN-06’s parameters from the last week, and indeed the numbers had been climbing exponentially.

Queen considered all of the data before her, ran it through her head with everything that Kogami had said, and looked back at the monitors showing the test subjects in their cells. There was an absolutely marvelous idea there, one that she could realize with ease. She just needed a little time, and a few people out of the way.

“I’ll be gathering a few volunteer pro duelists to test against your duelling AI, if their results are what I’m looking for, I’ll get back to you.” She spun on her heel, heading for the door. “You have one month to get the AIs to the point where they have free will and a consistent benefit, or it won’t be SOL taking the fall.” The door slid shut behind her, and she took the opportunity of being alone to smile as wide as she could without creasing her makeup. 

Getting their virtual reality system up and running years ahead of schedule was great, the possibilities of the AI duelling program was dripping with money, but the icing on the cake? 

Seven little duelists, who might already be at a professional level.

Seven scared little duelists with no one to trust, scarred from months without healthy human contact. 

Seven little duelists who could be molded to whatever she required, forces of nature that could shape Den City and the world beyond to whatever she might desire.

And why not go big? SOL Tech already ran all of the automated cars, buses, and trains in Den City and a good chunk of the country. SOL hosted servers for almost all of the government’s most sensitive information, not to mention the network of hospitals and banks they assisted in a similar manner. A hefty number of the satellites that orbited the Earth were under their control.

So why not go big? There was nothing that could stop her, not the mightiest armies that were stopped with the press of a button, not the politicians who feared the world outside her pocket, and not some genius scientist whose whole life was one phone call from being ended.

One month to finish things up, tie off loose ends, and plot her moves for the next few years. One month, and Queen would sacrifice the first of many pawns.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you thought! I love getting feedback!
> 
> If anyone is interested, you can find me over on Tumblr under @yami-kada
> 
> If it wasn't clear, the first pawn to be sacrificed is supposed to be referring to Kogami, since he knows so much.
> 
> In the spirit of last year's Vrainsweek, this piece is not beta'd!


End file.
